ANAHEIM – Vindication came in a two-pack for the Ducks on Sunday night, with Corey Perry taking a drink out of one can and Bruce Boudreau starting to sip out of the other.

Perry shook off a potentially scary injury late in the second period to deliver the final heroics as his gritty goal at 2:26 of overtime lifted the Ducks into the Western Conference finals with a 3-2 victory over the Calgary Flames in Game 5 to end the semifinal-round series.

Said Perry: “The fourth win is always the hardest one. They were desperate and they threw everything at us. I thought we played our game the whole game, and really started to take over in the second half, and we found a way.”

Said Patrick Maroon on the goal, “I got a pass to Getzy (Ryan Getzlaf) there and Getzy made a hell of a pass to Cam. Before we went out there, Bruce said, `Everyone go to the net. Everyone shoot from everywhere.' That's what we did. Me and Pears were just jamming at it. Those are the goals you're going to score in overtime.”

It will be the first time for the Ducks in the West final since the 2007 Stanley Cup season. The Ducks will face the Chicago Blackhawks in a best-of-7 conference final series and host Games 1 and 2 on dates to be determined. It will be Boudreau’s first conference final as a coach after years of great regular seasons that ended in early exits in either the first or second round with Washington and Anaheim.

The Ducks entered these playoffs with the best record in the West, a 51-24-7 mark that resulted in their third consecutive Pacific Division title. They’re now following it up with an 8-1 run in the postseason.

Perry continued that winning run by battling hard during a goal-mouth scramble and scoring from his knees as Calgary goalie Karri Ramo and the Flames in front of him tried in vain to get the puck out. It was a fairy-tale ending for the winger – and his first playoff overtime goal – after a serious scare.

Fear had rushed throughout the overflow crowd of 17,284 at Honda Center when Flames center Matt Stajan saw Perry following him and made a sharp turn back toward the sniper.

Stajan appeared to catch Perry with an apparent knee-to-knee hit that felled the Ducks’ scoring star. Perry immediately clutched his right knee and was in obvious pain before pulling himself off the ice, unable to put any weight on his leg.

“It was just incidental,” said Perry about Stajan’s hit.

No penalty was called and the fear quickly turned into anger from those in the stands as Perry was helped to the dressing room. But it wasn’t long before Perry was back on the bench and then trying his leg out in a quick turn on the ice during a stoppage in play.

“It didn't feel good at first,” Perry said, “but you do anything you can to come back and help your team win a game, at any point but especially in the playoffs.”

The Ducks fed off the sight of the winger gutting it out and blitzed Calgary at the end of the second. A goal didn’t result from the surge but Flames center Mikael Backlund took a slashing penalty to end the period.

And the Ducks’ power play continued to click. Perry returned to start the third but it was Matt Beleskey again who became a difference maker in his breakout season, scoring in all five games.

After getting the Game 4 winner, Beleskey got his stick on a Francois Beauchemin shot from the point and redirected the puck past Ramo at 59 seconds of the third for a 2-2 tie. The Ducks kept applying the pressure with a withering third-period display.

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